Santa Barbara Witch Trials
by blackwolf412
Summary: A little peek at what life's gonna be like for Spark, Sy, Con, and the rest while living in the new safe house in California.


in case you clicked on this randomly, know that it relates to my OC, spark, and a bunch of other people you can read about in my other maximum ride stories, _when sparks fly_ and _when they chase us_. i don't think it's truly necessary to read those in order to understand this, but hey, if this sparks your curiosity (ha, ha), feel free to check 'em out.

okay. this is just something random i came up with the other day. it was too funny to be left unposted, so. . .yeah. touched it up and turned it into a oneshot.

disclaimer: can kiss my ass, as the majority of the people mentioned by name here are my OCs. with the exception of iggy :P

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><p>Geez. Now, I've been in small houses. And I've been in average houses. And I've seen big houses on TV and in movies.<p>

But the Santa Barbara safe house was different beyond anything I'd imagined.

It's this big-ass house, right, and it's up on this hill that has a pretty long driveway. So you have some seclusion, which was great for us hybrids. Anyway, you go up the big drive, and there's this garage door, obviously intended for a car. But if you have no car, you can turn right and follow a little walkway around the garage, up some steps, and onto a porch, where hides the house's front door, which is just your average slab of dark blue wood. With a brass kickplate. And a peep-hole.

Enter the house. A small anteroom, tiled floor, line of hooks on the wall to the right. Walk forward, and you meet a hallway: if you turn right, you'll walk a few steps before finding yourself at a dead end, at either side of which lies a bathroom (door on the right) and stairs (staircase on the left); if you turn left upon entering the house, however, you follow a hallway, pass the garage door on the left, and eventually turn right into the living room.

It's big, it's spacious. There's a huge TV on the left wall, and chairs, coffee tables, couches, and other furniture lay scattered about the rest of the room. Off to your left is a big window, and a large sliding glass door, which leads out to the yard and an Olympic-size swimming pool.

In the opposite corner of the room's entrance is a doorway. Go through that and you find yourself in another, smaller living room (more commonly known as an "other" room), wherein lies another TV and more couches and chairs. The door to the basement is off to the right, practically in the corner, and on the back wall is another window that looks out into more of the backyard.

To your left, a kitchen. There, you'll see the largest dining table ever actually used in modern times; to its right, another sliding glass door; behind it, an island counter. Around the island, there's an exceptionally large refrigerator, a top-of-the-line oven, stove, microwave, dishwasher, and a sink, above which is yet another window. Marble countertops line the walls beneath fancy-looking cabinets. Beside the refrigerator is a cavernous pantry.

And thus we conclude our tour. . ._of the first floor._

Which is the only part of the house most of our visitors-if we had any-would see. Because the two floors up top were the bedrooms (hardly worth it, really, since they were really just hallways full of closed doors), and the basement was the second pool, showers (kinda like a locker-room sort of deal, this was where the washing machines were, too), and game room. The game room was pretty sweet, though-two more TVs, and the one empty wall that doubled as a giant screen when you turned on the little projector screwed into the ceiling.

On the first walkthrough of the place, my brain was overwhelmed by all of the space. Surely it was too much, too good to be true. I mean, the place had been built for the specific purpose of housing many people all at once, but _hell._ My inner MLIA-ness was having brain-gasms about the sheer amount of possibilities.

Everyone else went a little nuts when we first got there. Running around, checking all the rooms, trying to figure out all the electronics in the basement. Basically being a fleet of sugar-jacked, sleep-deprived, crazy mutant hybrids. Which we kinda were at that point.

I mean, first of all, the flock and I had just spent two weeks with the fish kids hopping around Australia on some awareness tour for the Coalition to Stop the Madness. Plus, we'd caught a late flight from Miami, our re-entering-America point, to San Francisco, our almost-near-our-new-home point. After that, it'd been a whirl around the city to find the CSM branch, where a big yellow school bus was waiting to drive us on out to Santa Barbara. There, we met up with Joey, Frankie, and their pride of cat hybrids, who we hadn't seen since the end of the London conference that was Itex's demise. So _then,_ after _all_ that, we piled on the bus, caught a bit of sleep, and woke up at the top of our street, located in a high-end neighborhood of fancy-pants "King's Deer" houses.

(I call them King's Deer houses 'cuz back on my turf, King's Deer was the swankiest 'hood in Mo-town.)

(I am so gangster.)

A quick skip down the lane and the fish-kids turned us up to the long, steep driveway of our new home. And thus commenced the grand tour, the ooh-ing and aah-ing, and the hyperactiveness.

About a third of our huge-ass family ran upstairs after the tour, ready to claim the best rooms for themselves. About half a dozen went downstairs to check out the pool and game room, and the rest milled about the living room, other room, and kitchen. I, being in that wonderful "it's three in the morning but I don't care" mood of half-dead, half-wired, was one of the downstairs deviants. I figured I'd take a quick look around, get my bearings, then head upstairs and find a room so I could spiral off into the sweet coma of sleep.

"Shit this is big," I said, my voice echoing slightly. I reached out with my foot and tapped the tip of my shoe to the surface of the basement's pool. The resulting _splish_ was louder than I thought it'd be, bouncing off the concrete walls in a weak echo.

"Maximum capacity is forty fish-kids," Sy said. I looked across the pool at where he was standing, hands in his pockets, eyes searching the clear chlorine depths. The pool lights refracted through the water, tingeing the entire room blue and throwing wavy chunks of white skittering over everything, including me and Sy. I was content to just watch him for a while, in his light blue jeans and his black Miami Heat sweatshirt, which we'd picked up randomly back in the Florida airport. The room's lighting was making his silvery hair shine faintly, and I felt my lips twitch. I'd always liked his hair. Made him easy to pick out in a crowd. It's like, "Yeah, see that guy over there? With the shiny hair? Yeah, he's mine. I called dibs."

He sensed me staring and looked up. "What?"

I blinked. "Nothing." Then I smiled and shook my head. "It's just. . .a little too much to handle right now."

"What is?" he asked.

"This," I said, gesturing vaguely to the room as I started walking back around towards the door. Sy, too, started heading for it, his intensely blue eyes watching me curiously. "The house, all of us here, just. . .everything. It's hard to believe that we just get to _have_ this, after all the shit we've gone through."

I came to a stop at the door, where Sy was already waiting. He smiled at me and said, "Don't we deserve it? Like you said, we've gone through a lot of shit."

And indeed we had. I had the scars and nightmares to prove it. There were the average ones, you know, with the twisted memories of abuse by scientists, and then the more extreme ones from recent ventures, such as falling off a cruise ship and drowning or being stabbed by Con or getting killed by Ariel or getting shot or. . .or whatever it was Leander had planned for me. I shuddered as his creepy whiteness drifted over my memory. _That,_ my friends, is the definition of psycho. My advice is you avoid all young people with white hair. And maybe some of the old ones, too. Can't ever be too careful.

But yeah. Lot of shit, these recent weeks.

"Of course we deserve it," I said to Sy, shaking off as many bad thoughts as possible. "We've all had horrible lives. But I think that's the thing, you know, we're so used to horrible that it's weird thinking about it being any other way."

"I guess that makes sense," he said, pulling a hand from his pocket and reaching up to tuck some stray hair behind my ear. "But I think what everyone needs most right now is just a chance to rest. Unwind."

"That's a very good idea," I agreed. "And I intend to do just that. Would you get the door for me, sir?"

Sy chuckled and leaned over to grab the door's handle. He pulled the door open and held it, waiting for me to go first.

I smiled at him, then paused, turning back to cast my eyes over to the pool one last time. "You know," I noted, "kids and pools aren't a very good combination. It'll only be a matter of time before we all start pushing each other into the water."

There was a slight hesitation before Sy answered me. "Yeah. . ."

I should've guessed it then, just from the sound of his voice, but it didn't even cross my mind until he grabbed my hand. I tried to struggle as he pulled me towards the pool, but my shoes had crappy treads and I just slid.

"Sy, don't you freaking-" was all I managed to say before he'd jumped, dragging me along with him. "AHH!"

_SPLOOSH!_

I automatically shut my eyes and held my breath as we submerged. Water and bubbles flooded my nose and I opened my mouth, gulping back water to pass through my gills. I opened my eyes and, through the blue chlorine sting, saw a glint of silver as Sy swam out of my reach.

_That stupid jerk!_

I let myself sink a bit so I that when I righted myself, my feet touched the bottom-I sprang off and bobbed up to the surface. Spitting water and coughing as my gills disappeared, I blinked wet hair out of my eyes and twisted around, searching for Sy. I found him behind me, a few feet away. His silver hair was stuck flat to his head, and he was grinning widely. Because, well, you know, what with his being part _fish_ and all, he'd just phased like a prick, and wasn't exactly soaked through. Like I was.

I smacked the pool's surface, since he was too far away. "You ass!" I yelled.

He just laughed and cringed back from the splash. "Well, once you said it, I just couldn't resist," he said somewhat breathlessly. I just stared at him and he kept grinning and laughing to himself. "You said yourself, Spark. It was only a matter of time."

"I didn't mean _me!_" I said loudly. "And I certainly didn't mean _now!_"

He just laughed. When he saw me irritably start to wring out my hair, he tried to look apologetic. "You mad?"

I scowled at him. "What do _you_ think?"

"I. . .think I should run," he said, sounding ready to burst out laughing again.

"I think you should too!" I shouted, and I dove for him. But he was better in the water, and easily avoided my lunge. Instead of giving chase in his home field, I went for the nearest part of floor, pulling myself out. Sy was way ahead of me, though, and already halfway up the stairs.

I staggered through the doorway, beyond determined to extract revenge in some way. Some part of my mind recognized the mostly-harmless prank, and even commended Sy for doing it, but the fact that it was three in the morning seemed to override all other thoughts. It was late, I was over-tired, I was wet, and he was not.

He. Would. Pay.

"Get _back_ here, you stupid, good-for-nothing. . .sea bass!" I shouted up the stairwell. My noise stirred the interest of those few in the game room, all of who came out to investigate.

"What?" Sy actually came back down a few steps and poked his head around the bend in the stairs. "_What_ did you just call me?"

"You heard!" I snapped, and started up the stairs.

"Oh, shit!" Sy vanished again, already gone by the time I'd made it to the landing.

My soaked clothes were weighing me down, but I knew I'd catch up. He couldn't go too fast in the house-he could overshoot and run into a wall or something. Plus, as I recalled more than a few of the house's new inhabitants were in the living room. They wouldn't let him get far.

I dashed up the remaining stairs and slid in the other room. A quick glance in the kitchen showed it to be empty, so I slipped and slid my way over the tiled floor so as to burst into the living room.

I heard him curse again and located him instantly-he'd been trying to hide near the side door, behind Joey and Frankie. He tried to bolt, but I yelled, "Don't let him run!" and almost automatically my once-bodyguards reacted, catching hold of Sy's arm and the back of his stupidly dry sweatshirt.

"Shit, no, let go, let go! Please, she's going to kill me, please!" Sy was shaking with laughter, all hyped up in the high one gets after pulling a prank even though you fully knew the other party wouldn't find it funny.

Well. He wasn't going to be the _only_ one laughing by the end of this night. Ohhh, no.

Joey stared at Sy in bewilderment, and Frankie looked from Sy to me and back again. He put two and two together and smiled widely, letting go of Sy's hoodie so as to get a firmer grip on his arm.

The four kids from downstairs-Arthur, Aqua, Gazzy, and Iggy-all followed up behind me, their questions adding to the ones of those in the living room.

"What's going on?"

"What happened?"

"Why are you all wet?"

"Why's Sy trying to run away?"

Ignoring all questions, I took a few steps and put a hand on the nearest fish-kid. All the while, I kept staring at Sy, who looked half-crazed in the high of the chase.

"Kyla," I said clearly. "Is there a way to pool-dump a fish kid and actually have him get wet?"

She looked me up and down, smirking at my stringy, dripping hair and my dark, squishy shoes. She looked over at Sy, who shook his head, but then she turned to me with a bright, sunny smile on her face.

"Well, usually we have to concentrate to make it not happen," she told me, "but we do have theories."

I looked at her with scholarly interest. "Do tell."

A wicked gleam twinkled in her ruby eyes and she bit her lip for a second, trying not to laugh. "We think that if you hold the legs apart, it'd be harder for the tail to form," she said, flipping a lock of brown hair over her shoulder. "We've all been taught to keep our legs together, so-"

"Ha!" Iggy laughed, interrupting her explanation.

"Shut up!" she snapped back, but she was still smiling.

"Hey, hey." I waved my hand in front of her face to get her attention again. "Anything else?"

"Huh?" Kyla blinked. "Oh. Um, only going half-in doesn't trigger a full-on change," she offered.

"Hm." I scrunched up my face in thought, then shrugged. "Ah, well. Time's a-wastin', and he needs to go all-in. I'll just hold his feet." I put my hands together in a praying position and inclined my head. She giggled and returned the gesture. "I thank you for the help."

I glanced around, spotted a rocking chair, and pulled it close. Lifting the cushion from the seat, I flung it away and clambered onto the chair. Once I was up in front of everyone, I spread my arms wide.

Now. If you've seen _Pocahontas_, you'll know Governor Ratcliffe, the villain. He talks funny, with this odd lilt and a weird half-accent. And perhaps you've seen old movies of the Puritan times-they, too, talk with almost-accents, and have the occasional fluctuation of pitch whilst talking.

I don't know _what_ inspired me to do it, but somehow when I started talking, my voice came out as a mixture of those two things.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" I cried. "Good people of. . .here! I regret to inform you that we have among our number. . ." I paused dramatically, then pointed an accusing finger at Sy. "A witch!"

They all stared at me like I'd gone off my rocker. Which I hadn't, yet. In fact I was quite steady upon my rocker. I'd removed the seat cushion for the specific reason of _not_ falling off my rocker.

They didn't seem to realize that, however, and so in an imperfect chorus, everybody (even Sy) cried, _"What?"_

"You heard me!" I retorted loudly, my voice dropping lower with each short word.

"Why am I a witch?" Sy asked in bewilderment.

"QUIET, HEATHEN!" I shouted, so loud a good many people jumped. I smirked at Sy. _Push me in the pool, will you?_ I thought. _Well, taste revenge, Poseidon!_

In response to my sudden yelling, all of those who'd been roaming about upstairs gradually found their way to the living room, looking confused, worried, and even amused. And as they filed in, Frankie-because he's just the goofiest kitten in the litter-called out to me and asked loudly, "A witch, my friend?"

I grinned. "Indeed, good sir." I was still talking with that weird voice, but had no intention of stopping. Because everything's more fun with an accent. I held up my finger and pointed dramatically at Sy again. "That boy you and your friend hold between you as thus is a witch! For he most cruelly dragged me beneath the waves of the Devil's pool but yet not became wet himself! The only conclusion is witchery! And sorcery! And other. . .magicky things of that nature!"

I got a few laughs with that one, but most everybody was still out of it. Sy, though, knew he was pretty much screwed at this point, so he played along. "I'm not a witch!" he protested.

"I COMMAND THE CRETIN HOLD HIS TONGUE!" I yelled over him. Some of the younger kids giggled as I accidentally spit on the "t" of "tongue." I dragged my damp sleeve across my mouth and added, "Excuse my spit!"

"What's with all the screaming?"

I looked up, and the rest of the room turned. Con was standing, looking very wary, at the very edge of the room. I took a quick glance around and saw he was last to join the party. Judging from the look on his face, he probably hadn't been expecting this when he decided to come down and see what all the noise was about.

I put on a smile. "Ah. Mister Con, good of you to join us! Please, come closer, so you can hear." I beckoned to him, but he stayed put.

"Why are you on a chair?" he asked. "And what's with the voice?"

"We have ourselves a possible witch on our hands," I told him, gesturing to Sy. "Would you like to come join us in deciding his fate?"

"You switched accents," Iggy whispered loudly. "You sound Irish now."

"What, do you be wishin' to be tried next, boyo?" I asked in my best Irish accent. He snorted and shook his head. Reverting to my Puritan witch-hunter/Ratcliffe voice, I said, "I thought not. Now. Mister Con, would you like to join us?"

He just stared at me, in my dramatic pose atop the rocking chair, then glanced at Sy, who shrugged helplessly. An unsure smile lifted Con's mouth. ". . .What the hell. Sure."

"Splendid."

"Oh, come on, Con, not you too!" Sy exclaimed. "I'm not a witch!"

"THE COURT DEMANDS THAT THE WITCH SHUT HIS STUPID WITCHY MOUTH AND BE _SILENT!_"* My voice cracked on that last word (which made more than just the kiddies laugh) and I coughed, my hand going to my neck. Geez. All that yelling sure took a toll.

"How do you know he's a witch?"

I blinked and looked around at Con, who'd joined the crowd of "townspeople" gathered around my chair. "What?"

"Yes, how _do_ you know?" Wave asked accusingly, and I looked around at her, grinning. She was going all out, with an accent and everything. Good on her! "You say he wasn't wet whilst in the pool, but for all we know he may be a mermaid, impervious to all that is water."

"You have a point, my dear miss," I allowed, half-bowing at her. "However! There is a very simple way to decide this! So, my friends, I ask you! What is the best way to determine a witch?"

By now everyone was either playing along or having fits of laughter and giggle attacks; I searched for someone who'd answer, when suddenly Blaze cried out, "Oh, I know this one!"

"Yes?" My wet shoes squealed as I spun on my toes, and the rocking chair rocked with the sudden movement. I wobbled, but grabbed on the back of it and stayed upright. "Inform us!"

"Oh, crap, it's, it's, um. . .oh!" Her eyes bright with amusement, she smiled. "It's if he weighs the same as a duck, right?"

"Correct, milady!" I said, raising my finger. (Those who hadn't seen _Monty Python_ still laughed, but in confusion, while the few who had seen it nearly went hysterical.) I made a fist and brought my hand down again. "However. . .we sadly have no ducks on the premises. So we shall do it the old-fashioned way! We shall float him!"

A few of them cheered, and the rest laughed. We were getting close to the point of this skit now, and they could tell; I could feel the excitement bouncing around the room like a bunch of squirrels on crack.

"Guards!" I spun on the chair again and nearly fell again. I pointed to the yard and said, "Take the prisoner outside!"

"What? No, stop!" Sy only half-fought Joey and Frankie as they slid open the side door and hauled him outside. "Come on, it was a joke! SPARK! I'm not a witch!"

"A likely claim, servant of BEELZEBUB!" I sneered, screeching the last word. Then I did a Moses-like sweeping motion with my hands, crying, "Part the way!" The kids shuffled aside to create a path, and as soon as it was clear I hopped down from my chair, ran outside, and jumped wildly into the pool. (I was already wet anyway, so why not?) When I bobbed back up I met Joey and Frankie at the water's edge.

"And now for the truth!" I cried, making a grab for Sy's feet. But he danced back.

"HEATHEN!" I shouted, smacking the water. "You cannot escape your fate!" I jumped up and got hold of one of his ankles.

"Shit, Spark, stop!" he yelled, half-laughing, half-serious. He tried to hop back, but I kept hold on his one foot. "Really, I'm sorry!"

"We must determine thy witchery!" I protested. "GUARDS!"

All at once, Joey and Frankie stepped back; I shot backwards, pulling Sy's foot as I did; and Con ran up and shoved Sy in the back, banishing any hopes the poor guy had of escaping his "fate."

Inhaling chlorinated water is a very bad idea, but the look on Sy's face when he broke the surface was so totally worth it. I highly doubt he'd ever been pool-dumped in his life, or even been totally wet while underwater-it all added up to half-surprised, half-happy, half-hysterical. Everybody was cracking up, Con maybe worst of all-he had actually gone to the ground, unable to stand for laughter.

Now, nearly thirty voices' worth of laughter was pretty loud, so loud that I spared half a thought to our new neighbors. But then they flew right out of my mind when Sy darted to the edge of the pool, grabbed a fistful of Con's shirt, and yanked him into the water.

"Ohhhhh!" a few people called out as Con fell. They went back to laughing their asses off as he popped back up, spitting water and shaking hair out of his eyes. He whipped around, searching for Sy, who'd wisely moved to the opposite side of the pool.

"ASSHOLE!" he yelled at the top of his voice. Sy childishly stuck out his tongue at him.

I accidentally snorted chlorine again as Con tried in vain to attack Sy; though he was enduring his punishment by not changing to his fish form, he was still pretty quick in the water. I coughed and choked and nearly died laughing as Con irritably gave up and clambered out of the pool, only to fall in again when Blaze ran up and pushed him back. And then of course Frankie tried to shove _her_ in, but he messed up and let her get a hold on him. They both ended up tumbling in with yells and a gigantic splash, which seemed the signal for everybody else to just cut loose and join in.

For the moment, nobody cared that it was three in the morning. Nobody cared that we were probably ruining our clothes. Nobody cared that we were probably instilling unneeded suspicion in the neighbors. Nobody cared that, just a few weeks ago, we'd been risking our lives to bankrupt the most powerful corporation in the world.

Nah. We cared more when the fish kids eventually changed forms and swam around like so many mer-children, flicking water at us with their tails and making waves crash down on our heads from ten feet up in the air.

For the moment. . .we just had fun.

And let me just say: twenty-six sleep-deprived mutant hybrids plus one particularly crazy sleep-deprived mutant hybrid plus one pool all equates to one _hell_ of a first night in a new home.

If I do say so myself.

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><p>*out of all of this randomness, i think <em>that<em> was my favorite line.

this may or may not become the first chapter of a new spark story. . .or at least, that's how i wrote it. the fact of the matter, however, is that i have practically no talent (or interest, really) in writing a "normal" story, so unless i find a new evil cause, this will remain a oneshot.


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